Draft parking policy to earn money, not ease congestion, claims CCI

Automobile agencies fear that if all the provisions proposed in the draft are implemented, the sale of cars will go down, which will have negative impact on the business.CHANDIGARH: Expressing displeasure over the draft parking policy, the Chamber of Chandigarh Industries (CCI) pointed out the main motive of the policy is to earn revenue rather than addressing the problem of congestion and parking.

CCI urged the Chandigarh administration to think out of the box instead of coming up with a non-implementable policy. Through the six-page draft parking policy, the administration has proposed strict measures to discourage residents from buying more cars to address the problem of parking and congestion.

The administration has proposed to put a cap on the number of cars to be sold in one quarter and charge road tax up to half of the price of the cars costing Rs 10 lakh and above and on the second car purchased. “Majority of the points in the draft are aimed at earning money,” said president of CCI Naveen Manglani. He further said that the increased tax on car will force people to buy cars from Panchkula and Mohali.

CCI suggested introduction of a single side traffic system instead of imposing congestion tax. The industries body stated that congestion occurs majorly on roads in the north-south direction. The east-west roads are always less congested as they have only a single entry or exit point. CCI also identified some of the congested lights points 22/21, 21/20, 22/23, 34/35, 35/36, Ram Darbar/31, 31/32 ,in the city, which need to be closed.

The association suggested that the administration should improve the infrastructure and public transport instead of imposing high taxes. “Police need to educate the drivers and encourage lane driving. It can do wonders in regulating traffic,” said Manglani.

The parking problem is grave in sectors 31 to 47, which have the highest number of registered vehicles (1.46 lakh), both two-wheelers and four-wheelers. This is followed by sectors 1 to 30, which has 1.14 lakh registered vehicles. In sectors 48 to 56, there are 34,976 registered vehicles. The city has the highest per capita vehicle density in the country.

The association also suggested that office timing should be changed to avoid traffic snarls. For creating more parking space, industrialists suggested that the administration should relax building byelaws.

​​This comes as a surprise to the industry as Rakesh was recently elevated to the position of Directo Sales and Marketing which was the third promotion for him in six years of his tenure in the company.